Monday, September 10, 2012

It's been a slow, but steady summer for me. I've been working on cleaning up the code on my website, doing a lot of sketching, and learning about making jewelry through trial and error. I've had a number of custom orders, but spent the majority of my time reading forums, tutorials and learning, learning, learning by making a number of mistakes. Most of what I worked on hit the trash can. But here are a few of my favorite things from this summer.

I call these Copper Domed Petal Earrings and I had a blast making these though they took awhile. Yes, I could have bought the blanks pre-made but this is me working full fabrication, forged from start to finish. With a number of discs thrown into the recycle pile. (sigh) Still, now that I know what I did wrong, I’m ready to make some more of these... in different sizes? maybe even mixing copper and silver? Stamped? Patina’d? Suggestions?

I wanted something turquoise to wear and these Swarovski crystal columns have been sitting in my stash for way too long. Feeling lonely. Unwanted. Unloved. Poor Swaros. This is really stunning and looks so much better in person than in the photo. his necklace looks so much better than I can photograph. I used
beautiful, puffed rectangle and oval rectangle beads of dyed, stabilized
turquoise, in a vibrant blue very close to the color of real Sleeping
Beauty Turquoise, but at a much lower price. The beads together with
stunning Swarovski Crystal AB columns, rounds and Indicolite bicones
connect to a sterling silver chain with lobster claw clasp and create a
simple, yet elegant necklace for an evening out.

By far my favorite, and hardest project, it took me several days to finish this one. I have no idea what the stone is as it came in a lot of mixed cabs. It's a beautiful blue, with white spaces and tan colored veins. I wanted to do something to complement it's petite pear shape so after forming the bezel, I made a leaf out of Argentium wire. I then soldered the bezel to the inside of the leaf and used sterling silver half round from my stock to create the shank. I did need some advice how to properly solder the shank to the leaf so asked my resources over at Orchid. One reason it took so long. But it came out great and now I’m working on a series of rings, bracelets, earrings and necklaces to complement this one.

So for me, it's been an interesting summer. Slow, but a lot of fun. I'm still working on the website, cleaning up code, changing over to my new logo, fixing it up and trying to make it better. But the time I spend learning and writing code for the pages, takes up the time I'd rather be in the studio, making mistakes and also making some beautiful jewelry.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Well, they say the road to hell is paved with them. I guess I'm just as guilty of procrastinating as anyone else. But 5 months? Really, I'm a bad girl. :) I haven't been making much jewelry and I haven't been spending much time writing here either. What I have been doing is living life. Taking trips with friends and spending time with those I care about. Things are changing around me and I've never been much of a writer to begin with. I keep saying I'll try to write something, anything, at least once a week, but then life happens and I forget. It's just not that important to me that I put pen to paper and tell strangers about the trivialities of my days. Perhaps if I had more knowledge to share. But I'm still accumulating it myself.

Jacksie (5 mo) February 2012

Okay, What have I been doing since December of last year? I went to Disney in January, got a gorgeous new kitten in February, helped a friend through the death of her husband of 32 years, went to Naples, FL in March, went on a 2 week trans-Atlantic Cruise to Europe in April (I saw Paris in springtime and it was beautiful!!!), went back to Disney for the Flower & Garden Show in May and here we are. I've had acupuncture, which miraculously cured the excruciating pain of sciatica which had me unable to walk for the better part of 3 months. And I say miraculously because I thought nothing would help but this did and the pain is still gone. Lost a very close friend who said some hurtful things to me and never called back, found that I still have friends who love me and the hits just keep on coming. I'm working on joining up with one of my best friends, Shelley, from Tortoise Treasures, and if things work out well, sometime over the summer I will move up to the Delray/Boynton/Lantana area and move my studio as well. You'll be able to find me at a real brick & mortar location as I'll be MikiCat Designs at Tortoise Treasures Emporium. Fancy, aint it? LOL

Funny, just today I told a dear friend of mine on Facebook, one who has a heart condition and has others telling her all the time not to do the things she loves to do because of the danger, that "Your life is only as good as you choose to live it. Immerse yourself in those choices and never look back." I guess it's what 58+ years of living on this earth is trying to teach me. It's possible I may finally have an inkling of what that really means after all these years.

So for now, I guess 4 paragraphs is enough to cover the last 5 months... at least sketchily. Perhaps I'll write more later about the wonderful Celebrity Eclipse cruise (it was AWESOME), our weekend in London (cold, rainy but great) and getting to see Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees at Epcot (too cool)! Then again, perhaps I'll be too busy living life to write about it.